Ghaziabad municipal corporation rolls out SOP for standardising cleaning operations

The Ghaziabad municipal corporation has taken steps to standardise its cleaning services and roped in four levels of supervisors for effective control over its 4,550 members of cleaning staff, authorities said Wednesday

The Ghaziabad municipal corporation has taken steps to standardise its cleaning services and roped in four levels of supervisors for effective control over its 4,550 members of cleaning staff, authorities said Wednesday.

Ghaziabad, India - April 05, 2022: A garbage pickup truck at work in Sanjay Nagar, Sector 23, in Ghaziabad, India, on Tuesday, April 05, 2022. (Photo by Sakib Ali /Hindustan Times)

The Uttar Pradesh government has also issued directions to all local bodies in the state to ensure that all households are covered under its door-to-door solid waste collection services by June 15. Under the new SOPs (standard operating procedures), officials of the corporation said that they are ensuring that all cleaning activities across the city take place between 5am and 8am.

“For effective supervision, we have deployed a safai nayak who will directly supervise the cleaning operation. He will, in turn, be supervised by a beat in-charge who will be responsible for a residential ward. A group of beat in-charges will be supervised by a cluster in-charge who will head a cluster or group of several residential wards. A sanitary inspector will head this entire team and supervise several clusters,” said Mithilesh Kumar, city health officer.

The entire team will be supervised by a super zonal in-charge--a senior departmental head of the corporation. Officials said that they have also set up an integrated control room at Company Bagh near Ghanta Ghar, where they will monitor all the GPS-fitted door-to-door collection vehicles in real-time.

Currently, the city has a fleet of about 500 door-to-door collection vehicles and deploys a fleet of 235 secondary collection vehicles for the transportation of daily solid waste for processing.

“The control room will attend to complaints and monitor our vehicles. Usually, complaints land up at the Integrated Grievance Redressal System in Lucknow and these complaints are then directed to the local level. So, the control room will also directly take up local complaints and ensure that they are resolved after being assigned to different supervisory officers,” Kumar added.

According to directions issued by the UP government on April 4, authorities have been directed to prepare a micro plan; form a beat system for the cleaning staff; provide chambers for dry and wet waste in door-to-door collection vehicles for segregation at source; identify garbage-vulnerable points; get officials to supervise different works from 5am to 8am; ensure that not more than 5% vehicles are out of order at a time and operate the control room in two shifts from 5am to 9pm.

Residents, meanwhile, said that they have started to witness a change in the way the garbage is lifted and the overall cleanliness of the city.

“Supervising officials arrive early in the mornings and coordinate cleaning activities in Kaushambi. The corporation must keep supervising and control cleaning. Of the 25 high-rises in our area,15 high-rises are complying with norms of waste segregation at source. The residents will fully cooperate with the agency,” said VK Mittal, president of Kaushmabi Apartments residents’ welfare association.

Environmentalists, however, said that there are still places in the city where garbage is dumped willy-nilly.

“If the agency thinks that its new system will provide fruitful results, they should continue it and sustain the momentum. There are still garbage dumps in certain areas which should be removed. Their functioning needs to be streamlined. If the corporation is charging people for door-to-door collection, they should ensure timely and regular movement of its vehicles in localities,” said Akash Vashishtha, a city-based environmentalist.